This weekend, I will be attending the Kansas City Renaissance Festival held in Bonner Springs, KS.  I have attended the faire almost every year of my life that I have lived in Kansas City, since my parents started taking me along when I was very young.  From good food to great entertainment and interesting shopping, there is always more to do at the renaissance festival than I have time for in a single day.  I have been to renaissance fairs held in other cities, but so far Kansas City’s is better.  Not only is it huge, spanning 16 Acres of private land, but the land they have is used exclusively for the renaissance festival and related events.  This means that they are able to have a huge number of permanent structures, rides, and attractions that would not be possible at fairs that must be torn down after each festival. 

Each of the seven weekends the festival is open, they have a different theme.  This weekend’s theme is “Celtic Crimes of Fashion - Featuring the Scottish Heavy Athletics Wargames!” I am particularly interested in trying some haggis, the horrible sounding Scottish “delicacy” involving sheep organs cooked with oatmeal in a stomach lining.  Yum!

On the way back from Anime St. Louis and ShowMeCon a couple weeks ago, we stopped at Quail Ridge Park just outside of Wentzville Mo, off I-70 and Highway 40/61 in St. Charles County to play a round of Frisbee golf.

The disc golf course at Quail Ridge Park is very well maintained and fairly challenging, with a wide variety of hole types, ranging from simple open distance shots to narrow paths in the woods. It is one of the shorter courses I have played, with most of the holes well under 300′ in length. The shortness of the holes makes the course fairly easy, so advanced players may be left wanting more challenge.

The park has very nicely kept facilities, with many clean public restrooms, water fountains and faucets, and a number of picnic shelters. If you live nearby this park, I highly recommend a visit, but due to the overall simplicity of the course, players who live very far from this park may not find it worth the drive.

Read more to see more pictures of the park.

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As part of my trip last weekend, I visited Graham Cave State Park (google map here). I was there primarily because the park is close to I-70, and is an inexpensive place to spend the night camping. However, the park turned out to be a nice place to visit for other reasons as well. Read my review and see more pictures after the jump. (more…)